22,414,373 members doing good!
about our ads
share your passions, stories, inspirations, and more
Bushes "Bailout" For Auto Industry Is A Poison Pill For US Blue Collar Workers
Dec 20, 2008

The Republican NEO CON think tanks thought this through and figured out how  to break the US auto unions and get rid of all worker entitlement programs, by making US union workers to blame for EVERYTHING... 

Entitlement? Republicans want to break AALLLL unions including the UAW.. so make them look like Satan incarnate.. Easy to do, as we own the media and we can craft the message.

Workers rights? don't need em... 

Retirement benefits? Get rid of them, they get in the way of profits. 

Unions? They are a Communist conspiracy.. Never mind that China does not allow unions as they get in the way of corporate dictatorship. 

What about the LIE that union auto workers make much much more what non union workers make? 

Surprise, foreign car workers make more or exactly the same as union car workers for US auto plants. That is lie number 1.. that US car workers make much more than foreign NON UNION car workers. 




Union workers make exactly what foreign car workers make.. So what?... Cut their salaries anyway..

LIE NUMBER 2. US union workers cost much more per hour than foreign workers.

Retirees from US car companies have been retiring for over 100 years, which costs US car companies money.. that is the 'extra cost' per hour that many conservatives say is part of too high 'wages'. 

 Foreign car companies have only 20 years history and few retirees, so much less cost there, right? So what do US car companies want? Take this cost away and make US taxpayers pay for this, as MANY other large corporations are now doing... Get rid of retirement benefits entirely. Never mind that US taxpayers would get the shaft, along with retirees that built up all of these companies. Pension funds are a drain on corporate profits and prevent absolute dictatorship over workers. 

Only cars built in the US have built-in health insurance costs, because other cars are built in places like Japan or Germany that provide health insurance to all citizens, or they're built in places like Mexico or Brazil where the workforces are non-union and don't receive health care AT ALL. What do these car companies and Republicans want? Throw all benefits out, and let the workers be uninsured. THis is part of the higher per hour wage cost... What is the answer?

If all US CITIZENS had universal healthcare like all citizens do in all other civilized countries except the US, well geez, then we could drop all that 'extra' cost.. Bush and his misguided cronies want all workers to pay for healthcare 100% out of their own pocket or join the ranks of 50 MILLION people in the US who are uninsured, right? The funny math that Republicans use is totally based on outright lies and misconceptions designed to piss off everyone at the unions, not at management. http://www.dhinmi.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/15202/495/359/664761

Meanwhile, executives and management keep their salaries and bonuses, and stock options, and golden parachutes, and all the rest of the perks such as private jets, etc... ad nauseum. The bottom line, it is OK for management to make trillions IN SECRET HANDOUTS, but workers get the shaft and unions must be broken, because they challenge this status quo of corporate dictatorship and worker enslavement entitlement program.

This is all bad enough, but it gets worse.. The reasons for Republicans voting down the Auto bailout package are not what they seemed.

"Republican senators blocked the bailout, which required 60 votes rather than a simple majority. And they did it for the worst possible reasons.

Exhibit A is Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, an outspoken opponent of the bailout who told Detroit CEOs point-blank - before hearings even began - that he would vote no on a loan.

Shelby, it turns out, is a bought-and-paid-for advocate for non-American carmakers.

Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz all operate in Alabama, a so-called right-to-work state where unions are scarce - but taxpayer help for corporations is not. At a recent press conference, Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers union, ticked off the staggering sums of subsidy money Alabama has given to these foreign companies.

"We have Hyundai Motor Co. that got $252 million in incentives. Toyota there got $29 million in incentives. Honda, $158 million," Gettelfinger said.

Alabama gave Mercedes-Benz the sweetest deal of all: job training, incentives, an agreement to buy 2,500 cars and a parcel of land valued at more than $250 million - the price to Mercedes of building a plant.

"That incentive package totaled somewhere around $175,000 per employee to create those jobs there," Gettelfinger said. "We can offer incentives to our competitors to come here and compete against us, but at the same time we are willing to walk away from an industry that is the backbone of our economy."

That, in a nutshell, is the problem. Nationwide, right-to-work states have poured $3 billion in subsidies into foreign-owned carmakers since 1992, according to the union. And yet Republican senators from states like Alabama, Mississippi,Kentucky, Tennessee and both Carolinas suddenly turned into born-again opponents of giving government dollars to private companies."

Republicans in states where foreign car companies reside prevented a fair helping hand to the US homegrown auto industry.  By breaking the unions in the US with Bushes POISON handout, they can lower the wages paid to THEIR foreign workers, and increase their profits, with the help of traitorous Republicans in bed with foreign car companies. 

Never mind all of this truth.. Blame the workers... blame the US union workers, blame the workers... keep repeating this mantra until you believe it. 

Bush and his Republican cronies who are forcing the breaking of all unions do not think through what this means for the economy.. They do not bother to say that ALL car companies are currently getting handouts from their respective governments..plus subsidies and perks here in the US, as shown above...They conveniently FORGET to talk about this. 
 If the US lets car companies fold and disappear, it would just be exporting more car part manufacturing jobs to Communist China, Japan and Europe, which is the competition. No US taxes paid, no jobs in our local communities and no middle class blue collar workers... In other words, more slaves for the corporate machines to chew on and spit out. 

"Fast disappearing is an era when workers on assembly lines can afford to buy the vehicles they make. When the UAW agreed to a midcontract opener in 2005, and a 2007 agreement that lowered new-hire wages to $14.50 an hour, the union struggled to squeak out approval from an angry (and increasingly financially unstable) membership.

Blaming the Workers

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger later said his decision to negotiate with a lone Republican senator was a mistake, especially when the whole pantomime seemed like a warm-up act for Republican opposition to the card-check bill, the Employee Free Choice Act. But the administration's insistence on linking the bridge loan to wage cuts angered autoworkers even more.

Jim Theisen, a member of UAW Local 212, who joined the autoworker caravan to Washington, said the caravan brought the message to Capitol Hill that rank-and-file wages aren't the industry's problem, and that cutting union wages harms everyone.

"Our Southern brothers and sisters don't get $24 an hour out of the kindness of the auto owners' hearts," he said. "If there wasn't a union in the North, they'd be getting $10 an hour."

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/114303/autoworkers_forced_to_take_concessions_in_industry_bailout/

To show how Republicans control the media and the message, I bet you did not hear this on the CBS, NBC and other corporate owned media outlets, did you?


Do not look at the little man behind the curtain pulling the strings... or the lies he KEEPS ON telling. 
(2) | () | | send green star | flag as inappropriate
Visibility: Everyone
Tags: , , , , ,
Posted: Dec 20, 2008 7:31am

 
 
 
Content and comments expressed here are the opinions of Care2 users and not necessarily that of Care2.com or its affiliates.

Author

Green Road A.
male , single, 1 child
Rohnert Park, CA, USA
Shares by Type:
All (3172) | Blog (3010) | Alert (64) | Poll (3) | Tribute (9) | Message (86)

Showing shares tagged with: ford [show all]
ads keep care2 free
SHARES FROM GREEN ROAD'S NETWORK
May
22
(0 comments  |  discussions )
That you may retain your self-respect, it is betterto displease the people by doing what you know is right,than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.- William J. H. BoetckerPerhaps the surest test of an individual's integrityis...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Some Spanish lessons (algunas lecciones de Español)Don't worry, be happy! (No te preocupes, se feliz!)Hugs and blessings, (abrazos y bendiciones)Angeles
(0 comments  |  discussions )
     The Sun      
by Ned H.
(0 comments  |  discussions )
(0 comments  |  discussions )
You’ve heard of sniffer dogs, but what about sniffer bees? It might sound a bit far-fetched, but Croatian scientists have been trying to put the amazing senses of honeybees to a new use: finding potentially fatal landmines. It’s estimated...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
by Ned H.
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Apple to build U.S.-made Macs in Texas: When Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook announced late last year that the tech company wanted to bring some manufacturing back to the United States, it raised the question of where? Now we know: Texas.Cook talked about lo...
by Ned H.
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Jaffna erupts over Sri Lankan government land acquisition: People in Sri Lanka's former war-torn Northern Province have been protesting a government move to forcibly acquire land in the Jaffna peninsula which they claim is a ploy to bring in settlers...
(0 comments  |  discussions )
Description: Branching annual plant that grows on a single taproot. Hairy red stems that grow up to 2 ft, with long green white veined leaves that are deeply cut and spiny. In late summer plant blooms with yellow and brown thistled flowers that suc...
(0 comments  |  0 discussions )
Review of the book by Barbara W. Tuchman in our "Non-Fiction" section

Copyright © 2013 Care2.com, inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved